WildOats

I know winter is already here in some parts of the country. But here in Florida we really don’t have much of a winter. The weather here has broken, so the temperature and humidity have come down a a lot. It’s been cooler at night, and the days are nice. So with that, I’ve been heading out for my walks, and I don’t have to wait till after sunset.

So the other day I was out walking, and the sun was already low in the sky. It was about that time when the sun is still up, but the intensity is pretty low. Also the color temperature was nice and warm. Not white, like it is during mid-day. It had a warm tone to it, which I like when taking pictures.

I noticed this flower attached to a tree. I think it might be an orchid, but I’m not sure. What I also noticed was the the flower was under the canopy of the tree, so it was shaded. But from my vantage point, behind the flower, or what would be the background still had some sunshine on it. I liked the contrast of the shaded flower and the brighter background. The background that was still pretty bright was the wall of a house.

So I set my camera with a large aperture opening to throw the background out of focus. I aimed at the flower and snapped away. There was a bit of a breeze, and since the flower was on a thin stalk, it did wave around. The resulting picture is OK, but not as sharp as I would have liked. But I can’t stop the wind.

It’s going on about a year now having the iPhone. Overall it’s pretty cool. It offers a lot of versatility. It’s a phone, an iPod, you can surf the web, you can add a ton of widgets to it. A lot of useful things to it. It also has a camera built in.

The camera is really one feature I haven’t used almost at all. I basically just snapped a few pictures with it, to see if it worked. Well it did work, and I kind of left it at that. When I want to take pictures I have a camera that I use. But recently I decided to see what the camera in the iPhone could do.

So I slipped the phone into my pocket and went out the door. It’s nice that you can just put the phone in your pocket and not have a huge camera to carry and deal with. I took the  phone out and started to play around with it. The first thing I did notice is that there is no zooming at all. Unless you count foot zooming. You have to walk up closer and closer to fill the frame with whatever it is your photographing. I did notice that sometimes you have to get really close to whatever your photographing to get a big enough image. But when you do that, it seems like you get to a point where the camera no longer focuses properly. So you have a limit of how big images can get in your frame.

The other thing I noticed quickly is that there seems to be some sort of lag between when you press the shutter and when the camera takes the picture. And also, you’re not really sure when the picture is actually taken. So you kind of don’t know when it’s done, and you can move the camera. So I’m sure some pictures are blurry because you move before the picture is all done and taken.

Also, there’s no view finder. You have a screen that you look at, and you hold the camera out in front of you. Somehow at least for me, it seems like you can’t hold the camera steady enough. When you have a viewfinder and you hold the camera to your eye, it seems like you can hold the camera much more steadily. Which will give you a much better sharper image.

But overall, I guess the camera is decent for what it is. I guess it’s only for pictures that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to get. Like spurr of the moment stuff, and to document things when you don’t have a real camera with you. You always have your phone with you, so you’ll have this camera with you too.

I took pictures of just everyday things around my complex. Nothing fancy, I just wanted to see the quality of the images. 

This was of some sort of water pipe thing.

This one is a some sort of plant growing pool side.

A statue of a lion head.

The quality of the pictures is passable. Noting spectacular, but passable for a phone camera I think. What do you think?

Ever have the sensation where you catch something quickly in the corner of your eye? You see it, and keep on doing what you were focused on, then it dawns on you that you saw something. So you stop and look again. Making sure you really saw something?

Well I had that exact thing happen to me the other day. I was walking in my living room and just happened to look out my window at some trees. I live on the third floor so I basically see the tops of trees. I looked out, and thought I saw something in the tree. But when I looked again, I really wasn’t sure there was anything there.

But I thought I saw something. So I grabbed my camera, which had the long lens on it, from the last time I used it. I aimed it at the tree tops and looked. Sure enough….there was something there!! I wasn’t exactly sure what it was at first. So I zoomed in on it. I turned out to be an iguana sunning itself. 

That cracked me up. Living in Florida I’ve seen iguanas before, but I’ve never seen one at the top of tree. But there he was hanging out, basking in the sun.

This first picture is after he came out a bit and was more visible.

Then I zoomed in on him after he changed his position again.

Cute ain’t he? Wild the way it just hangs out on top of the tree like that.

I was out on my balcony when I shot those pictures. I was about to go back in, when I looked and saw a bird sitting in another tree. I thought he’d fly away, but he was happy to just sit there. So I took a few shots of him too. 

Not really sure what kind of bird it is. But here’s the picture anyway.

So pay attention, you never know what you might see.